


(Let's Meet in the) Purgatory of My Hips

by someblazingstar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:39:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someblazingstar/pseuds/someblazingstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean saves Castiel from falling. With sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Let's Meet in the) Purgatory of My Hips

Castiel is waiting, sitting on the edge of Dean's bed, when they get back to their room to regroup after lunch. "Hello, Dean. I need to talk to you," he says.

"Hey, you know what?" Sam says, backing out of the room. "I'm going to go...uh. Be somewhere else. Actually, Dean, don't worry about that research - I think I'm going to go hit the library, get it done now," and poof, he's gone. Dean almost expects to see a puff of smoke as he shuts the door behind him.

"He was eager to leave my presence," Castiel remarks.

"You really are thick sometimes, huh?" Dean says, shrugging the duffle bag off his shoulder and dropping it on the floor before sitting in the chair across from the bed.

"I'm sorry?"

"You have to understand, Sam actually believes in all your God stuff. Has for a long time, apparently. He prays, and trust me when I say it was a shock for me to find that out. So to have you guys show up, treating him like dirt and generally acting like dicks, it doesn't occur to you that that might be a disappointment? Might mess him up a little?"

Castiel blinks. "I see."

"No, you don't, but whatever." Dean sighs. "What's this about?"

Castiel stares into space for a long time, brow furrowed, until Dean's about ready to smack him for keeping him in suspense. "It's a personal matter, I suppose," he finally says, and Dean lets out a breath.

"No broken seals?"

"Not at the moment," Castiel says.

"Then what? You didn't just show up in my room for no reason."

Castiel closes his eyes. "My brothers seem to be under the impression that I'm in danger of falling."

Dean stares. "Run that by me again?"

"My brothers..."

"Okay, never mind. Um, _why_?"

Castiel looks at him. Really _looks_ at him, in that way he has, where Dean feels like he can't hide anything, like every nasty little part of himself is exposed to his gaze. It's not a feeling he's particularly fond of. "Because of you," he says.

Dean gets up out of his chair and just _stares_. "Me? What did I do?"

"It's complicated."

"Oh, is it? Well, I think Sam's going to be gone for a while, so you should have plenty of time to enlighten me."

Castiel actually looks like he's at a loss for words, for a moment, which is just _weird_. He gets up, too, pacing on the other side of the room, and Dean starts to feel...a little bad for him, actually. He's sure that the whole angelic not-having-feelings deal must be great most of the time - no matter what Anna said, there are times, pretty frequent times, when having feelings really, really sucks - but it's so clear that Castiel is struggling with something, something huge, that Dean has to wonder how well-equipped the guy must be, for...whatever it is.

"Seriously, what's wrong? You're freaking me out a little," he says.

"I shouldn't have come here," Castiel says, and makes like he's heading for the door, which is _also_ pretty freaky, since Dean knows perfectly well that he could just piss off into thin air like he usually does whenever Dean tries to force a real answer out of him.

"Spit it out. You want to talk about something, otherwise you'd be long gone," Dean says.

"It's not something I should ask of you," Castiel says, and holy crap, he looks almost _pained_.

Oh my _God_ \- ha, ha - fuck this. Dean advances on him, gets in his personal space; it's not like the guy doesn't do it to him all the time. Tries to intimidate with his body like he does with people, scare the words out of him, like Castiel couldn't vaporise him with a look if he wanted to.

Castiel looks...shocked? His eyes widen, and for a heartless son of a bitch, Dean can't help but notice that he's got a very expressive face.

Then Castiel kisses him.

It's dry, and kind of hesitant and hungry at the same time. A little peck on the lips that turns into a longer press, and Castiel draws back for just a second before going again, fitting their mouths together and parting his lips just enough to breathe gently against Dean's mouth for the space of a long exhale. Then he backs off, and Dean's...

He's...

He doesn't even know what to think.

"This is why you might fall?" he says, and it makes him feel sick. Not at the idea of being wanted by an angel (although, God, oh God), or one wearing a male body--

No. It's that, once again, he might just fuck everything up for someone else without even trying. Someone who, all the shit with Anna aside, has only ever tried to help him.

His throat feels dry. All of him does, really. "Was that...is that going to do it, right there? Are angels allowed to kiss people? Have I--?"

Castiel's giving him that stare again. "It's not touching you that's the problem, Dean. In this human body, I can act as humans do, physically. This body is probably why I want what I want in the first place. But it's not forbidden for me to do the things they do with their bodies, although I have so far chosen not to."

"Then what is it?"

"It's that I _want_ to so much," Castiel whispers. "To covet is to go against the very nature of angels, human form or not." He steps back, scrubbing at his hair with a hand, absently piling it into higher spikes and whorls sticking up from his head. "I don't know why, but if I could just-- But I told you, I wouldn't be right to ask for that, so--"

Dean blinks. "You want to fuck me."

"That's not the word I would have used. But something like that, yes."

"And...you _can_ fuck me and that's kosher with God, but the fact that you _want_ to and can't, that's a big deal?"

"You have a refreshing way of summarising complex moral dilemmas into simple terms, Dean. That's what I believe, yes."

"You _believe_? You mean you're not sure? You'd risk falling for a roll in the hay with me?"

"I am quite certain, Dean."

Something else occurs to him. "What does the guy you're riding around in think about this? He on board for letting you use his body like that?"

"His soul is no longer with us, Dean. This is my body, for as long as I inhabit it."

Well, that does tend to happen when you stab a guy in the heart. Though, of course Dean has no real way of knowing that that's what did it - that he is this man's official murderer - or if it was something else entirely. Still, it's something he feels really twitchy about if he thinks for too long, so he pulls his focus back to the present problem, thinks for a minute.

"We do this, no one gets hurt? No ugly consequences?"

"That's never a given in anything, as I'm sure you know by now. But there is nothing I can foresee. If we do this."

Dean closes his eyes for a moment, lets out the breath he hadn't caught on he was holding.

"Then...the main dilemma I'm seeing here is that you seem to be under the impression that us doing it would make you _stop_ wanting to. Which, dude, I'm not that bad in bed."

"What?"

"Cas. Seriously. You think I wouldn't do that? To stop you from falling? Hell, you think I would _turn down sex_ anyway, never mind sex that would save someone in the process? You don't know me very well," Dean says, putting his hands on Castiel's shoulders. "But you can, if you want," he whispers, and leans in.

Castiel doesn't really know how to kiss, Dean finds out. Oh, he has the enthusiasm, definitely, and he's not _bad_. There's just this odd disconnect there, more so even than with the tiny handful of blushing virgins Dean's messed around with (mostly way back when he wasn't far off from being one himself - he's generally more into girls who very much know what they want and how to get it), the whole not knowing where to put your nose and lips and hands thing cranked to eleven. It's simultaneously weird and endearing, and it reminds him a little too much of how, grown male body aside, this thing he's kissing is _not human_ in a way he has never experienced before - he's been up close and personal with all kinds of freaky things in his life, but not like this.

It also tells Dean that he is definitely going to have to be the one who takes charge here, show him what to do. Because, spooked as this makes him, just a bit, he can't _not_ do it now. Not at this point, not with Castiel in this state, strange and flustered in a way he would have never expected to see, and...he has to admit, he's a little intrigued. Hey, he'd be in danger of losing his perv credentials if he weren't, you know?

"Sit down on the bed," he tells Castiel. "Take your coat off, first. You're not going to need it for a while."

Castiel shrugs out of his trenchcoat and folds it over a chair, fingers trembling minutely like he's in shock, and stumbles back to sit amongst the rumpled sheets on Dean's bed. He waits, as if for some unknown signal, looking up at him, jaw dropped a fraction open. Dean doesn't take his eyes off him as he slips his own leather jacket off, leaving it in a pile on the carpeted floor, and then moves forward until he's on the bed, straddling the angel's lap.

"Dean," Castiel whispers.

Dean closes his eyes, reaches blindly until he takes Castiel's hand, long cold fingers folded in his own, and presses it to his side, just over the curve of his hipbone, into the gap where the edge of his shirt's riding up from his jeans. "Touch me anywhere you want, Cas, it's okay," he says into Castiel's ear, and at that he can feel the angel shake so hard he's almost worried.

But, no. He knows the good kind of shaking when he feels it.

"Is it touching me there that's got you like that, Cas?" he continues. "What I just said? Words can be sexy," and god, it's kind of turning him on, that this guy doesn't know _any_ of this, that he surely knows what sex is, the basics of the act and why people do it, but that his knowledge is like the difference between reading a book and watching the movie version. Worse, even, since movies usually give some clue of what's going on, just with parts rearranged and cut out. No, this is more like...reading a magazine blurb about chocolate, but never having tasted it. And Dean can give him that taste, can show him _everything_.

He kind of...really likes that.

He cranks up the seductive tone, loves how using it makes Castiel react. It's a weapon whose use he's honed finely over the years, just like his knives and guns and fists, something he uses to turn heads when his lips and eyes don't do the trick. It's so different to see someone he knows, at least somewhat, letting down his guard under the assault as surely as any anonymous girl ever has.

"Maybe it's having my lips right here, like this," he goes on, right up against the curve of Castiel's ear, and he shivers again. Yes. "It's a funny thing about our bodies - it's not always the parts you'd expect to feel good that do, that really get you worked up. I could touch your dick, right now, and you'd jump-" and he lets the tip of one finger ghost up the inside of Castiel's thigh, just short, so lightly he can just barely feel the texture of the fabric of his pants against his skin, and Castiel does jerk under his hand - "but if I kissed you here, say," and he presses his lips to the lobe of Castiel's ear and just _breathes_, and the angel's nails are in his _back_ through his t-shirt, a quick hard bite - "I'd get the same response. Get it? It's why sex is different with every person, we all react differently to different things, and sometimes it's the least expected things that are the best. Keeps it exciting."

"How many people have you...?"

Dean laughs, burying his nose against Castiel's neck. "Shit, I don't even remember. A lot, I know that. Does that bother you?"

"Should it?"

"Not unless you're worried about diseases. Which I don't have, by the way. Pretty sure, anyway," Dean says. Which is true - look, he (almost) always uses condoms, he's not stupid or anything, and he feels healthy enough. It's not like the life he leads allows for regular trips to clinics, though, so he's mostly spent it crossing his fingers.

He's not too worried for Castiel's sake, though. Unless he's hiding a few sucking chest wounds under his clothes, Dean's pretty sure he's not in any physical danger from him.

Castiel doesn't respond. He just reaches out and _touches_ him, eyes filled with something - his fingers brush through the short bristles of Dean's hair, over the curve of his ear, down his neck. Over the broad expanse of his shoulder, down, tugging down the loose collar of his beat-up t-shirt until the tip of one finger presses to the centre of the tattoo upon his breast.

"Sam put this here," he says,

"Well, yeah. We did each other. Uh, not like that."

"You would not trust any of the women you've slept with to touch you this way, do this to you."

Dean snorts. "Not likely."

"You have sex with strangers, but reserve your trust only for your brother," Castiel says, eyes fixed upon the bold mark on his skin.

Dean blinks. "What are you getting at?"

Castiel looks up at him. "Nothing bad." He pulls his hand away, lets the worn cotton slide back up to cover the tattoo. "It's why I'm so sure that this act will not taint me. I can...touch you like this...and it will not dilute the love I have for my father, just as your trysts cannot pull you from your brother."

"Thanks, I think." Dean shakes his head. "I'm not a stranger, Castiel."

Castiel's gaze is boring into him again. "No. You're not," he says, and his hand comes back up, to Dean's face. A finger traces the arch of an eyebrow, tests the spring of his eyelashes, follows the curve of a cheekbone. Draws down one faintly-stubbled cheek until it reaches the corner of his mouth. "Kiss me again," he says.

And Dean does, going with it, because, hey, what the hell? The last thing he wants, for everyone's sake, is for Castiel to fall. Any personal concern for the angel's well-being aside, Dean knows that he and Sam are on such a knife-edge right now that any help they can get, especially from a higher power, is help they need, help they certainly can't afford to lose. Especially not over something like this.

At the same time, though, if he wants this so badly, is going to push for it and justify it to himself and nearly beg for it...if this does do Castiel harm, Dean figures he'd better at least show him a real good time first. Make it worth his while. It's one thing he knows he's good for, one of the few.

Castiel keeps chasing his lips with his own every time Dean moves to pull back a bit, not wanting to let go, drawing the air in as Dean breathes out. Opening his mouth a little wider, and Dean licks along the seam between his lips before sliding his tongue inside, bracing a hand across the low of Castiel's back as he gasps against him.

"Gonna make you feel so good," Dean whispers, pitching his voice dark and deep, and Castiel's hands clench on Dean's biceps, breath stuttering out of him in a rush.

"Show me," he says, and now his voice is missing the calm he usually wears like one more part of the tax-accountant uniform, almost entirely. Like he's lost it along with the coat, along with the tie Dean's unknotting from around his neck, pulling it away and undoing the top buttons of his shirt to bite along his throat in swift hard movements until Castiel's hips are squirming under Dean's thighs.

Castiel's hands are on him again, one inching back up to the place where Dean put it, earlier, the smooth expanse of skin at his side, his waist, hitching up the t-shirt to expose more of him. Dean backs up for a second and tugs the shirt off, smiling as Castiel looks almost shocked. Probably at the speed, how fast he's taking things - Dean's quite sure Castiel has seen him shirtless before, the way he's always lurking. He pulled Dean out of Hell; he can't imagine that the sight of his bare chest is a surprise.

"Wanna feel you," he murmurs, unbuttoning Castiel's shirt the rest of the way, revealing a white undershirt beneath. Clean - all of his clothes are weirdly clean, in good repair, even, although Dean's shot him and stabbed him and seen him fight demons in this getup and has never seen him dressed in anything else. As far as he can tell, it's the same shirt he's been wearing since that first night he walked into that barn in a shock of fire and explosions.

Castiel pulls the bottom shirt up over his own head in a stilted movement that belies his inexperience at getting undressed, confirming Dean's suspicions, and yeah, that's a little trippy. He's smooth underneath, unblemished, more slightly built than Dean but not soft, not what he'd expect from an office worker's body, all lean muscle and narrow bones. It suits him, Dean thinks.

He coaxes Castiel back down onto the bed and just lays over him for a moment, letting him feel the heat of his skin, the weight of his body, pressing him down. "Is that good?" he asks.

"I like how you feel," Castiel says, matter of fact as usual but just on the edge of breathless. He places his hand at the centre of Dean's chest and pushes him back a bit, just looking at him, eyes moving all over Dean's torso. Tilts his head up and kisses Dean once, lightly, then ducks his head to press a kiss to his shoulder, then his collarbone, then the star at the centre of the tattoo over his heart. Then his nipple, and he darts his tongue out for a quick taste when Dean gasps at the touch. "Does that excite you?"

"God, yes," Dean groans, reaching over to run a thumb over one of Castiel's nipples, bowing his head to gently bite it, and he smiles at the noise that bursts out of him. "See? That's good, that's something you probably wouldn't think about, huh?"

"Mmm, yes. It's interesting," Castiel says. He takes Dean's hand, then, clasps their fingers tightly together for a moment before unsqueezing, circling his thumb across Dean's palm. He draws his hand down, then, places it over the front of his trousers, over the hard shape Dean can feel there. "It feels particularly intense right here, though," he says.

Dean sucks in a breath. "Well, yeah, I would hope so," he says, cupping his hand around Castiel's cock through the cloth. "You ever touch yourself there? Get yourself off?"

"No," Castiel says, looking up at him.

"You wanna try it now?"

"I want to try everything," Castiel says, eyes so clear, and Dean has to close his for a moment.

"Yeah, we can do that," he finally says, and he flicks open the fly of Castiel's trousers, yanking them down along with the plain boxers underneath. Gets down to the foot of his bed on his knees to pull off Castiel's shoes and socks and just strips him until everything is bare, gets his own jeans off but leaves his boxer-briefs, for now.

He looks, for a long moment. It's not like he's usually into guys, but he's not _not_ into guys, if that makes sense, and the guy Castiel is living in right now is fucking hot, he has to admit. Hotter now that Dean's played with him a little, mouth all soft and swollen, dick standing up proud and thick against his belly. He puts his hands on Castiel's hips, thumbs smoothing over the graceful curves of bone, and then hauls him up into his lap, straddling him. His dick nudges up through the soft black cotton of his shorts, prodding gently behind Castiel's balls, and Dean can't hold back a dirty little smile as Castiel's eyes widen.

"You feel that? Where I'm hard for you? What do you want me to do with you, Cas? Get you off, make you feel so good you can't even think straight? What do you think I should do to get you there?"

"I don't know, I don't know what's good, Dean, _show me_," and god, Dean has _got_ him. He's starting to understand it now, sees it in his face, that kind of fierce itching _want_ that must be making him crazy, would make anyone crazy, never mind someone like this with no fucking point of reference at all. No wonder he was talking about falling, the way he's squirming on Dean's dick, and Dean hasn't even taken it out yet.

"You want this, want to feel it?" Dean asks, right up against his ear, and Castiel clenches his hands on Dean's shoulders as Dean pushes up against him again, fabric of his boxer-briefs slicking through where he's leaking into them, little damp patch getting pushed up against Castiel's skin by the bobbing head of Dean's cock.

"Touch me, _please_," Castiel says, and Dean just shoves him back onto the bed, licking his mouth open wet and filthy before sliding down to trace a circle around the head of his cock with the tip of his tongue. He slides his mouth down over him and Castiel just _moans_, loud and wanton, and Dean's not even bothered anymore by the uncomfortable gaggy pressure of Castiel's dick against the back of his throat, the taste of precome that's just a little bit like licking a battery. It's been ages since Dean's done this, way longer since he's done it for fun - hey, meals don't pay for themselves, and there've been some uncomfortably long gaps between working credit cards and bars full of gambling fools at points in the past, you know? - and it's never been his favourite thing in the world, but he can't not like the way Castiel just _loses_ it.

He pulls off. "You like that?"

"Dean, yes, please," and he's babbling, hands pushing and petting through Dean's hair - just touching, not pulling him onto his dick, but that's probably just out of politeness, or maybe more like it just hasn't occurred yet - and legs falling open to let Dean in closer.

Dean tongues him all over for a few minutes, balls, thighs, dick, belly, all of it, just exploring, learning where to touch to make Castiel really squirm, though it all seems to be good to him the way he's hitching and gasping on the bed. Swallows him down again, hand wrapped around the base and sucking hard, now, not fucking around, and it's not long at all before he looks up and sees Castiel staring back down at him, so intent, face almost agonised, before those eyes close sudden and tight and his mouth is flooded with come.

He sits up, swallowing and wiping his hand over his mouth, feeling the slight sore stretch of his swollen lips. Moves up the bed, crouching over Castiel's body, and runs his thumb over Castiel's mouth. He goes with it when the angel wraps an unsteady arm loosely around his neck and pulls him in for a kiss, not seeming to mind the lingering taste of himself on Dean's mouth.

"That what you were after?" Dean says as their lips part, slick string of spit and come connecting them for a moment before it snaps.

"Dean, that was--I don't--" He's still a little breathless. "Is it always that _fast_, though?" he asks, sounding genuinely, unashamedly curious, and Dean just laughs.

"Don't worry about it, everyone's quick their first time. I'm just glad you had fun," Dean says, and he's only rubbing his own still-clothed dick up against Castiel's belly just a _little_, barely a real movement at all. No pressure.

"I know that's not all there is to it, though," Castiel says, voice dropping low, and okay, that was a definite thrust of Dean's hips. Dean reaches down, adjusts himself, biting his lip at the touch of his own hand through the fabric.

"You want more?" he whispers.

"I want to see you," Castiel says. "I want you to feel good, too."

Dean takes Castiel's hand and places it over the hard bulge of his dick in his shorts. "Take it out," he says.

Castiel's fingers trail up and around the length of him, like he's assessing the size and shape of him, a light, almost teasing touch, and Dean tilts his head back and moans when Castiel finally draws the waistband down. A hand presses to his chest, pushing him back, and Dean goes with it, kneeling on the bed over Castiel's body, letting him look.

"Like what you see?" he asks, and it's a question that he wants to ask with a smirk, but he can't, not when they're like this. Not when Castiel is staring at him like he's never wanted anything so much, eyes roaming all over his body, constantly darting back up to his face.

"Dean," Castiel says, just looking, looking, looking.

"Let me fuck you," Dean gasps out.

He hadn't even really been thinking about it, not that much anyway, only maybe a little, and now he can't stop thinking about it. Can't stop thinking about how it'll feel to push into that body, all crazy-tight heat, can't stop wondering what kind of sounds Castiel will make when Dean's on top of him and _in_ him, if he'll shake and lose control like he did at the touch of Dean's mouth on his dick.

Castiel just closes his eyes and nods, head jerking, and Dean knows he doesn't really, really know what Dean's asking for, gets the mechanics and perhaps the intimacy but not all of what this means to people. But he can make this good, he thinks, and he pushes one of Castiel's knees up and back, spreading him open. Strokes a dry finger back behind his balls until he finds the opening there, just touches, watches Castiel's teeth nip into his lower lip, the toes of his pushed-up foot twitching. He's getting hard again.

"Hang on, I gotta," Dean says, and he goes into the room's little kitchenette to find the bottle of cooking oil he spotted in there earlier, the one that's probably been in the back of the cabinet for a decade. Brings it with him, standing by the bed and just watching Castiel's face as he opens it, drizzling some onto his fingers.

"Tell me if this is good," he says, setting the bottle by the bed and kneeling over Castiel's body again, and he pushes a finger in slow and steady.

He can see the muscles in Castiel's thighs tense up, his belly, body shivering taut all at once. "It's good," he says, voice like he's choking.

He twists his finger, rocking it in and out, realising after a minute that his hips are working in the same rhythm, dick slipping against Castiel's leg, leaving wet trails on his skin. He hasn't actually fucked a guy before, so he's just sort of guessing at this, and he figures it's probably okay to go ahead when Castiel arches his back and _keens_ with it.

He cups his palms over Castiel's knees, nudging them as far apart as they'll go, and then strokes his own dick with his oily hand, hissing at the touch on his over-sensitive skin, before lining up the head and pushing with slow, firm pressure. When he's all the way in he crawls up Castiel's body on his hands until he's looking down into his face, getting a quick glimpse of Castiel's wide-blown eyes before the angel shuts them tight, flushed face tilting away.

"Is this hurting you? Is it too much?" he asks.

"Yes," Castiel gasps out, "but _don't stop_."

Dean works his hips in a slow rhythm, twisting them in tiny circles. Lowers his head to nuzzle at Castiel's neck. "Is it good?"

"It's...so..." Castiel's voice vibrates in his throat against Dean's mouth, lips bitten red when Dean pulls back to watch him. "It feels _so_\--"

Dean moves his hips faster, quick little in-and-out punches, and Castiel moans so desperately that the sound makes Dean's face go hot. "You like that?" he asks, pulling one of Castiel's legs up over his shoulder. "Like my dick in you, like me riding you?" Castiel just nods, frantic almost, mouth soft and open. Dean leans down to kiss him and their tongues twist together, just stroking all over, and then Castiel grabs his hand and pulls it down to his dick.

"Dean, please, I need to--" He's rock-hard in Dean's hand, Dean belatedly feeling the slickness against his own belly where Castiel's leaked all over him, and it only takes a few strokes, the slippery pressure of Dean's thumb across the plump head, before Castiel comes all over him, crying out with it, low breathy _ah, ah, ah_ noises falling from his mouth.

Those sounds, and the clench of Castiel's body, and the angry constant ache of arousal that's been ratcheting up higher and higher in him pretty much since he first saw Castiel on his bed, all these things clash together in him, and Dean comes, too, gripping fierce at Castiel's ass as he shoves in deep, feeling it pulsing out of him in waves. He can vaguely hear himself over the din in his head, "oh God, oh God," voice like his head is underwater.

"_Dean_," Castiel gasps, and Dean falls heavily forward, hand slapping down on the mattress. They stay like that for a moment, faces so close the tips of their noses are nudged together, before Dean works his way free of Castiel's body and rolls to his side, hand on his chest.

They breathe for a moment, eyes closed, bodies curled towards each other's, barely touching.

"Think that's out of your system now?" Dean asks, sitting up on the bed.

Castiel just looks at him, but it's not his usual knowing stare. This look is something totally new, and Dean can't decipher it, just puzzle out hints of what it contains. There's something almost like shock there, like he's seeing a ghost. He looks like he's seeing Dean for the first time.

"I must go now," he says, rising stiff and slow from the bed and gathering his clothes up off the floor.

"Cas, wait--" But he's gone.

**

When Sam finally comes back, it's almost dark out, and Dean is keenly aware of his eyes on the rumpled sheets, knows he's aware of the scent hanging in the air. He looks at him, for a long time, brow furrowed, but he doesn't say a thing. Just watches his face for a long moment and then opens the book he brought, suddenly fully immersed in research mode like a switch has been thrown.

They never do talk about it.

Dean sees Castiel again, about as often as before, random appearances in the midst of cases, dispensing advice once or twice in dreams. But they never do it again, even though Dean sometimes thinks he catches a glimpse of _something_ in his eyes, some glimmer of feeling, that makes him think that he might still want to. That he might think about it as much as Dean does, little flashes of his face twisted in pleasure cropping up late at night when he's worn out and can't sleep.

Much as he wants Castiel to be…as close to happy as is possible for a creature like him, he has to admit to himself that he wants to believe that this haunts him, too. That he's not the only one who feels this, this low twist in his gut at the thought and sight of the other man.

But they don't do it again, never discuss it. It might as well have never happened.

Castiel doesn't fall.


End file.
